Game on: GTA IV: Ballad of Gay Tony
Grand Theft Auto IV: Ballad of Gay Tony, X360
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Tuesday November 17 2009
The second of two downloadable add-ons to GTA IV, Gay Tony follows the exploits of yet another gangster in the crime-ridden Liberty City. Structurally familiar (driving and shooting dominate), its power lies in its strong characters and savage parodies.
Multi-player options add replay value and GTA fans will lap up this episode. But a little more innovation would have been welcome.
Rating: 8.5/10
Scribblenauts, DS
"The only limits are the limits of our imagination," that great philosopher Bono once said. He probably wasn't thinking of Scribblenauts but might as well have been.
A dazzling game that asks you to dream up the objects to solve puzzles, it's like nothing else out there. Typical tasks are a variant on old chestnuts such as how to get a wolf and a goat across a river on a raft. But Scribblenauts' vast database enables you to conjure such incredible solutions (anything from atomic bombs to zeppelins) that most of the fun comes from simply experimenting.
True, the controls are horribly frustrating at times and logic is occasionally ignored. Yet Scribblenauts is so fresh it's irresistible.
Rating: 8.5/10
Wet, X60/PS3
If Tarantino made videogames, it would be like this. A frenetic shooter layered with flashy visuals and hard-boiled characters, it plays like an homage to Kill Bill.
Vengeful heroine Rubi is all curves and mouth (voiced by Dollhouse's Eliza Dushku). On a gun-for-hire mission to find a missing person, it all goes pear-shaped and she ends up the hunted instead of the hunter.
The slow-mo guns'n'swords gameplay sometimes feels as if it runs on autopilot and Quentin would weep at the awful script. But for outrageous fun and audacious set-pieces, Wet pushes all the right blood-stained buttons.
Rating: 7/10
Irish Independent
